Clearly Confused - I feel restless and long for something profound.

Q. I teach performing arts at a high school. I want to change my location and perhaps my career as a teacher, yet an opportunity to assume more leadership in my job is emerging. I have been dissatisfied with my marriage for about a year, yet my husband and I are moving ahead with plans to build a house. I have developed an attraction to a younger man who works with my husband, which confuses me further. Some good things are happening in my life, but I feel restless and long for something profound. In my daydreams, I imagine myself single and living a bohemian artist life. Is this just a mid-life crisis that I should ride out, or is it time to seize the moment and affect some life change?

— Clearly Confused

A. If the planets could speak, they’d shout, “Carpe diem!”¹ This is Latin for "Seize the moment!" As transiting Uranus completes its Last Quarter square² The last-quarter square (letting go) follows the opposition and is different from the first-quarter square (building form). To find out more, read The Lunation Cycle: A Key to Understanding of Personality by Dane Rudhyar, Aurora Press, 1967 and the article, An Overview of Dane Rudhyar’s Approach to Cycles (TMA, 2/98), by Nicki Michaels. to your natal Moon, while trundling over your Ascendant for the final time, there’s a clear celestial mandate to move on with your life. Momentum toward change has been building since early 2002 when these Uranus transits began, along with transiting Pluto conjoining your Midheaven (a huge shake-up of your security, both inner and outer), while the progressed full Moon illuminated the way toward change and reintegration.³ Including a 2° orb, transiting Uranus squares the natal Moon from March 3, 2002 to December 26, 2003 and conjoins the natal Ascendant from May 3, 2003 to February 16, 2004. Transiting Pluto conjoined the Midheaven from February 3, 2000 to November 12, 2002; progressed Full Moon on February 4, 2002. The progressed Moon crossing your Ascendant in August 2003 was the clincher. Deep in your heart, you know change is way due!

When in doubt, begin where you are. Release whatever you are sure no longer works in your life, whether attitudes, practices, or relationships. Not knowing exactly what will replace them can be hugely scary; feel the fear and do it anyway.⁴

You say “I feel restless and long for something profound.” I say stay with the longing. Allow it to permeate you from head to toe; stay with both the enormous discomfort and magnificent deliciousness of yearning without satiety. This heightened awareness will alter your perceptions until a knowing percolates up from the depths of your being. That’s when you make your move. Again, based on current planetary patterns, that knowing should be mighty close to the surface.

Is the answer to leave your marriage or build a new home? Is your destiny to become the single bohemian artist or assume more leadership in your current career? Will you literally leave the state or actually transform your inner state? Only your heart knows for sure. Look deep inside and ask yourself at the start of each and every day, “How do I live today with full integrity and authenticity?” Then, just do it.